Teaching kids how to keep a ledger of their savings and spending habits is a great way to encourage writing practice, as well as mathematics.
You could even say it's an economical way to combine the two skills. (I couldn't help myself!)
Giving kids a way to practice their writing without worksheets, and with real-world application can make them forget about the tedium of learning how to form letters and numbers correctly, especially for kids who may struggle with fine motor skills.
Choosing a Ledger
Giving your kids allowance offers the perfect opportunity to practice math and writing in a ledger. Make a big deal out of taking a special trip to the office supply or stationery store and let them pick out their accounting book.
Offering them the opportunity to pick out an actually accounting ledger instead of using a plain notebook can help give them the feeling of ownership and motivate them to practice their math skills and keep up the habit in the long term.
MORE: Fun Handwriting Activities and Games
Keeping Track
How your family controls allowance payouts will determine the exact methodology. We require our kids to put their allowance into three buckets: spend, save, and give. As a result, they record their allowance as it comes in weekly into three columns. Very young kids may also enjoy this coin sorting activity.
Then, as they spend their money, they record those expenditures in a separate column.
At the end of the month, they tally up their expenditures and savings. When they decide to give a lump sum of money away, they record that, too. A great supplement to keeping a ledger is to ask your kids to reflect on their feelings about their finances in one of these journals that encourage self-reflection with directed prompts!
MORE: Math Activities for After School
Joyful Learner says
This is fabulous! Can you share this post on our math links? Thanks!
Raising a Happy Child says
Your system makes a lot of sense to me - I wish we had a family pet. So far Anna displayed very little interest in earning money and she doesn't really ask for anything except chocolate - I suspect that this girl gets everything before she even gets a chance to know that she wants it.
aly in va says
that is a practical idea indeed. I can't tell you how many folks I know who can't budget their checkbook....unfortunately myself too.
Joyful Learner says
Thanks for reposting this! We just collected red envelopes and I wrote it down on a checkbook.
Manav says
Hi,
My son is almost 6 yrs old and I have started to teach him basic accounting as well. I made a simple format on Excel and printed out some pages and made an accounting notebook out of it. He records everything he earns and everything he spends and also balances (adds or subtracts) after each transaction.
I want to ask you about how your child/ren is doing with his accounting and if he uses the accounting skills when thinking about getting toys, candies, etc. Also, what changes did you make in your methods, if any?
Thanks in advance on your feedback.
Sincerely,
Manav
Erica MomandKiddo says
We still do the ledgers much like I describe in this post. It's been working well for us. He tends not to record his purchases any more, which I suppose he should do, but I let him handle it how he wants to.